They compile data on lots of issues, not just gun related stuff. They seem to be painstakingly objective in that they quote all of their sources and publish their methods for evaluating statistics.

Some interesting quotes from the site:

* Based on survey data from the U.S. Department of Justice, roughly 5,340,000 violent crimes were committed in the United States during 2008. These include simple/aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders.[13] [14] [15] Of these, about 436,000 or 8% were committed by offenders visibly armed with a gun.[16]

* Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18]

* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun "for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere." Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 1,029,615 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard."[19]

* A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year.[20]

J.D.Allen

02-03-2011, 1:23 PM

Also this is relevant to current debate:

A 1997 U.S. Justice Department survey of 14,285 state prison inmates found that among those inmates who carried a firearm during the offense for which they were sent to jail, 0.7% obtained the firearm at a gun show, 1% at a flea market, 3.8% from a pawn shop, 8.3% from a retail store, 39.2% through an illegal/street source, and 39.6% through family or friends.[94]

Librarian

02-03-2011, 2:13 PM

What you want to see is two different .gov web sites and an edu site:
Bureau of Justice Statistics (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/) (BJS) -- they do the The National Crime Victimization Survey (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=92) (NCVS)
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (http://www.ncjrs.gov/) (NCJRS)
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/)

J.D.Allen

02-03-2011, 4:35 PM

What you want to see is two different .gov web sites and an edu site:
Bureau of Justice Statistics (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/) (BJS) -- they do the The National Crime Victimization Survey (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=92) (NCVS)
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (http://www.ncjrs.gov/) (NCJRS)
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Thanks!

Librarian

02-03-2011, 4:37 PM

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Thanks!

From one obvious stats nerd to another, you're welcome!

paradox

02-03-2011, 4:42 PM

Now learn how to use R for some real stats nerd fun (every language should have a Turing complete plotting function :P )

CaliforniaLiberal

02-04-2011, 2:16 AM

bump

GrizzlyGuy

02-04-2011, 8:49 AM

See also GunFacts.info (http://gunfacts.info/) which cites sources for the various statistics they use in making pro-gun arguments.

Librarian

02-04-2011, 9:23 AM

Now learn how to use R for some real stats nerd fun (every language should have a Turing complete plotting function :P )

English?

There's nerds, and then there's NERDS! :) (I'm married to my Stats consultant.)

goober

02-04-2011, 10:50 AM

Now learn how to use R for some real stats nerd fun (every language should have a Turing complete plotting function :P )

English?

There's nerds, and then there's NERDS! :) (I'm married to my Stats consultant.)

R (http://www.r-project.org/) is a free, open-source computer stats package and programming language that is extremely powerful but only semi-user-friendly. It has a bit of a learning curve but once one knows the basics, it is pretty usable.
By "Turing Complete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness)", paradox meant that using R, you can program just about any algorithm you like, meaning you can plot and analyze just about anything in any way you wish.
yep, guilty as charged. NERD :o

Librarian

02-04-2011, 10:33 PM

R (http://www.r-project.org/) is a free, open-source computer stats package and programming language that is extremely powerful but only semi-user-friendly. It has a bit of a learning curve but once one knows the basics, it is pretty usable.
By "Turing Complete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness)", paradox meant that using R, you can program just about any algorithm you like, meaning you can plot and analyze just about anything in any way you wish.
yep, guilty as charged. NERD :o
Ha!

No, I meant 'English is a language - should it also "have a Turing complete plotting function"? '
(Sometimes brevity is the soul of having to explain your joke, thus grinding out any possible humor from it!)

If you can't write it in SNOBOL, it isn't worth doing. Could be worse:"There are three things a man must do
before his life is done;
Write two lines in APL,
And make the buggers run."
-- Stan Kelly-Bootle, 'The Devil's DP Dictionary'

goober

02-04-2011, 10:51 PM

Ha!

No, I meant 'English is a language - should it also "have a Turing complete plotting function"? '
(Sometimes brevity is the soul of having to explain your joke, thus grinding out any possible humor from it!)

If you can't write it in SNOBOL, it isn't worth doing. Could be worse:

misinterpreted as "Say that in English please" :o
my apologies.

Falconis

02-04-2011, 11:13 PM

"][The Framers were] unlikely then to have thought of a right to keep loaded handguns in homes to confront intruders in urban settings as central. And the subsequent development of modern urban police departments, by diminishing the need to keep loaded guns nearby in case of intruders, would have moved any such right even further away from the heart of the amendment's more basic protective ends.
QUOTE]

This was taken from the websites. Do those liberal out of touch whack jobs who probably live in well to do neighborhoods know how long it can take an urban police department to respond even in the best of circumstances?

Librarian

02-04-2011, 11:28 PM

misinterpreted as "Say that in English please" :o
my apologies.

Not at all, my fault entirely.

In high school my English teacher had A Talk With Me. He told me that I needed to write answers to exam questions that someone besides he and I understood to be responsive. I was so lazy I expected him to understand me... ;)

mikaarce

02-05-2011, 8:19 AM

If we had more understanding teachers.....:)

FatCity67

02-05-2011, 10:04 AM

UGH I hated statistics in college. Unless it involved cataloging the measurements of the female student body.:D